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Tag Archives: mercy

I came across this article by a friend of a friend, and wanted to share. Her perspective is challenging, thought-provoking, and crucial to how we look at mercy and justice in the world today. It’s the Christmas story told another way. The story is still alive. It will move you.

While I was in Europe at a conference recently, I found myself witness to something most terrible. A witness to violence.

I walked down a cobbled street on a gray morning, and three people ahead of me were screaming at each other. A man and a woman yelled until their voices cracked, and a second woman stood with them. The verbal combat spiraled furiously between the two who shouted, and I approached as the man pressed himself close to the woman, forcing her backward as all those hidden instincts to express power through physical space played themselves out between them.

They screamed in French. Their voices were too broken for me to understand exactly what they said.

I walked directly between them, coldly breaking the invisible field of combat, and I glared straight into the man’s anger-darkened face. I tried to fill my eyes with every ounce of contempt that…